Do It Yourself Auto Repairs

Here’s another tale from the Nick Happens file, a collection of true stories about my adventures and misadventures over the years.

We all know you can save a lot of money by doing your own vehicle maintenance and simple repairs. I even suggest it in my book The Frugal RVer. The problem is that there is so darned little I am qualified to do! When it comes to mechanical things, I am a complete idiot.

Here is an example: Back during our fulltime RVing days we were hanging out in Lake City, Florida one winter when the battery in our Toyota Tacoma started to fail and I needed to get it replaced. The local Wally World did not have the right size in stock. They install new batteries free if you purchase them there, but I figured “How hard can that be? You take off the hold down clamp, loosen the battery cables, pull the old battery out and replace it with the new one, then clamp it down, and hook up the cables, right?”

Actually, I did not think all of that. Miss Terry explained the process to me. I was all for jump starting the pickup every time I needed to go somewhere until Walmart got a new shipment of batteries in.

So off we went like a herd of turtles to a nearby auto parts store and bought a new battery. I swapped it out with the old one right there in the parking lot of Auto Zone and it seemed easy enough. I took the old battery back into the store to collect the core charge and was ready to hit the road. Back in the truck, I turned the key and nothing happened. The truck would not turn over, no idiot lights came on, it was as dead as dead can be! I got out, checked all of my connections, got back in the truck and turned the key. Still nothing.

Back inside the store I go to tell them they sold me a dead battery. The manager came outside, took one look, and started chuckling, then said “Give me your crescent wrench.” He removed the negative battery cable, pulled off the black plastic cover that comes on the posts to keep anyone from accidentally shorting them out, replaced the cable, and it worked fine! Some of us are just too dumb to do things for ourselves, and at this stage in my life, I don’t think I’ll learn anytime soon.

I should have just let Miss Terry do it right in the first place. She’s the talented one in our household, I’m just the eye candy. I tell you, my life as a boy toy isn’t always easy!

Congratulations Howard Krakower, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of Highway History And Back Road Mystery, featuring  interesting locations and fascinating stories no tourist bureau will ever tell you about. Stories like that of West Virginia’s Zona Hester Shue, the Greenbrier Ghost, who came back from the grave to see her killer brought to justice. Or the mystery of who is buried in Daniel Boone’s tomb. Two states, Missouri and Kentucky, both claim to be the final resting place of the pioneer explorer. We’ve all heard of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but have you ever heard of John Henry Wisdom, the Paul Revere of the South? Everybody knows about the Great Chicago Fire, which killed some 300 people. On the very same night, the entire town of Peshtigo, in northern Wisconsin, was destroyed, with ten times as many lives lost! Stories like this, along with the little-known tales of an Old West outlaw who became famous only years after he fell to a posse’s guns; a dead man who led a wagon train over the Oregon Trail; ghosts who still haunt an old prison; battlefields; lady spies; historic forts; gamblers; lawmen; and ancient mysteries. These stories and more await you on two lane roads in every corner of America.

We had 51 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon! Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Did you know that you can find all of my books and sign up for my free author’s newsletter on my website at www.nickrussellbooks.com?

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – A car with a roof rack behind me looked like a police car so I slowed down, only to realize I had been tricked into obeying the law for no reason.